News - WD launches "world’s first" SSD+HDD dual drive

[HEXUS]

The WD Black2 is a 2.5-inch/9.5mm drive, pairing a 120GB SSD and a 1TB HDD.

Read more.

[minicale]

£250 why would anyone get it over a 120gb ssd for like £70 and a HDD for £50 which is less then half the price I could only see it being useful for laptops but even the a 1tb momentus drive is only around £80 sure it only has a 8gb ssd cache but for a third of the price it asks the question are you willing to spend 3x the price for a bigger cache? I personally would not bother.

[DanceswithUnix]

Well that was interesting right up until I saw the lack of Linux support and then the price.

Couldn't they have just emulated a SATA port multiplier and present as two standard drives? Not compatible with everything, but then neither is this apparently.

[crossy]

Well that was interesting right up until I saw the lack of Linux support and then the price.

My thoughts too - Windows only driver and £250 - no way. Just had a quick look and an 120GB EVO and a 1TB Travelstar (7200rpm) comes to £140. So WD are looking for £100 just for the convenience of having a single bay solution. Driver support also means no chance to use this in NAS/media-server type devices.

Shame because when I saw the headline I thought - "ooh, SSHD with 120GB of SSD cache - that'll fly", so disappointed when it turns out to just be a dumb bay saving idea.

Also took a very quick clicky trip and the 750GB EVO is "only" £150 more expensive. And that doesn't need any special driver, has very low power requirements (so better than the Black2 for laptops) and is silent (so better than the Black2 for HTPC applications). And by all reports the larger EVO's are faster than the smaller ones.

Didn't mention the 1TB EVO above because that's just under twice the cost of the Black2 - at the moment. That caveat was added because I'm very sure that it'll be significantly cheaper by this time next year. In which case if I was in the market for a Black2, I'll wait for the price of the EVO to fall. Failing that, a 1TB Seagate SSHD is less than £90 - c'mon Seagate let's have a SSHD with 32GB or 64GB flash!

[Traldera]

Its for single drive laptops guys, not for desktops or dual-HDD laptops

[kingpotnoodle]

It's at least £50 too pricey, it'd be better for me if it presented as 2 separate drives - that I could see a use for at the right price, but a poorly compatible fiddly cache solution just rings alarm bells for me. I'd sooner buy a 500GB SSD, I don't think many people need more than that as local storage in a laptop, and if they do then there are umpteen external solutions.

[semo]

So while startups have been working hard on transforming IO throughput capacity in the storage industry, WD has been working hard on developing a massive inconvenience for those willing to pay for it.

WD, you are not using the technology right. Just dive into SSDs or gtfo

[edzieba]

Couldn't they have just set it up in the same was as their existing SSHD drives, and simply had a larger cache? That would make the SSHD concept actually useful.

[gerryw]

My thoughts too...

Well said. A 2-for-1 deal, yet you pay more, requires a s/w install, and can only be used on x, y and z. Clearly a bargain for the clueless.

Even for a laptop, as mentioned, if you are going to pay that sort of price, you might as well just buy a full on SSD. There are plenty of better solutions to expand storage access these days(cloud, ext hdd, massive thumb drives, NAS, etc). Storing mass amounts of data on a mobile device has never ever been a smart choice.

Speed or Storage. Make your mind up or you'll end up with sporage; an achievement of neither one or the other.

[Jonj1611]

Its for single drive laptops guys, not for desktops or dual-HDD laptops

That's not what the review indicates????

[ET3D]

It will probably end up in high spec small laptops, rather than as a component for DIY builders or upgrades.

[crossy]

It's at least £50 too pricey, it'd be better for me if it presented as 2 separate drives - that I could see a use for at the right price, but a poorly compatible fiddly cache solution just rings alarm bells for me.

Erm, much as I hate to correct the potentate of pasta - the Black^2 IS two drives. WDC press release says:

WD®, a Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) company and storage industry leader, today announced the release of the WD Black2™ dual drive, a unique storage innovation that fuses a 2.5-inch 120 GB solid state drive (SSD) with a 1 TB hard disk drive (HDD) to offer a powerful dual drive solution.

Note - "powerful dual drive solution". Plus it wouldn't make much sense for WD to have their "enabler" enable the HDD if it was a single drive image. Check out Anandtech's coverage

Couldn't they have just set it up in the same was as their existing SSHD drives, and simply had a larger cache? That would make the SSHD concept actually useful.

Problem is that - reputedly - WD's SSHD's are also heavily dependant on drivers, so Windows only. For my money, Seagate's SSHD idea of having a "smart" drive that just looks like a normal one is preferable by a country mile. And I'm not just saying that because Seagate were a recent donator of Hexus prizes.

Speed or Storage. Make your mind up or you'll end up with sporage; an achievement of neither one or the other.

"Sporage" That would've got MY vote for word of the year, not "selfie". Maybe large SSD's should be referred to as 'sporage".

[Saracen]

Well, I want to disagree with everyone and point out when and where this is a good idea.

I just can't think of any scenarios, offhand. Damn.



Seriously though ..... HOW MUCH!!!

And no Linux! WD, you having a laff?

/Checks date ..... nope, not April 1st.

/Checks Google .... nope, Nov 25th isn't the new April 1st.

/Checks with doctor .... nope, I haven't had a mental breakdown.

/Checks view from window .... nope, doesn't look like I've been kidnapped by aliens

/Checks with .... erm, who do I check with to see if I've slipped through a space warp or something, and ended up in an alternate reality??

Yup, that must be it. Alternate reality. Otherwise, nothing much about this product makes sense too me. I hope I can still get peanut butter in this reality.

[miniyazz]

I don't get the hate? Clearly this is aimed for those with laptops, who want speed and storage. I'd be tempted myself for my portable laptop - but I'd rather stick a 512GB SSD in there, which is what I'll probably do, since I don't need the additional storage space. But I can see the appeal.
Why does everyone seem to think it should cost the same as a 2.5" SSD and HDD bought separately? There must have been a huge amount of R&D to cram TWO drives into the space usually afforded to one.
It would be more appealing I guess if they implemented a fancy controller to display to Windows the two drives as simply partitions of one drive, which might have alleviated any driver and platform incompatibilities, but it's still a good idea and one worthy of consideration for anyone in need of more internal storage for their laptop.

[Valinor]

They did say it was for a very specific set of people; those who want something like an SSHD (limiting the market) but also want control over what goes to the SSD and what goes on the HDD (limiting it further). I don't fall into that (like a lot of people, I'd suspect) but for those who want that, and only have a single 2.5" mount it sounds like a nice idea.

[Kumagoro]

Easily 100 quid too much. I would like one for a Pico PC but not that much. 250gb SSD maybe for 200 but I would expect 250gb SSD and 2tb hdd.